St. Lawrence and Clarkson will finish 1-2 in some order and are the only teams to have clinched home ice.

Vermont and Colgate cannot gain home ice.

Brown has been eliminated.

You need to be crazy to figure out all the possibilities.

Now, let’s list the tiebreakers.

1. Head-to-head

2. Record versus Top 5

3. Record versus Top 10

4. Head-to-head goal differential

5. Goal differential versus Top 5

6. Goal differential versus Top 10

Our advice to figure this all out? Just wait until 10:30 on Saturday night.

How High Can You Go, How Low Can You Go?

Let’s keep it brief once again. What we’ll do is give you a best case scenario, a worst-case scenario, and a little handicapping from our point of view (take that with a grain of salt, as Normand Chouinard will tell you).

Remember, all scenarios that we paint are just one way of getting to the result. There are different combinations. We just give you one or two examples.

St. Lawrence

Best Case — 1stHow? — Two wins and the Saints are the champs. Or, two Clarkson losses.Worst Case — 2ndHow? — Two losses and one Clarkson win. Or, only one win and two Clarkson wins.Handicapping — The Saints have to travel to two tough places to play, the Gut and Thompson. It won’t be easy for the Saints to pull off two wins.

Clarkson

Best Case — 1stHow? — Two wins and one St. Lawrence loss. Or, one win and two St. Lawrence losses.Worst Case — 2ndHow? — Two St. Lawrence wins, or two losses by the Knights.Handicapping — See above in reference to St. Lawrence. The Knights are in the same boat.

Cornell

Best Case — 3rdHow? — Two wins. The Big Red win the tiebreaker over Harvard by virtue of a win and a tie. Or, one win and a loss, plus at least one loss by Rensselaer and Yale, one loss and a win by Harvard, and no more than two points by Dartmouth.Worst Case — 8thHow? — The Big Red lose two, Rensselaer sweeps, Dartmouth wins one game, Yale and Harvard tie their game, Yale defeats Brown, Harvard loses to Princeton and Princeton defeats Brown. Cornell loses a three-way tiebreaker to Yale and Princeton.Handicapping — The Big Red face two teams in the lower half of the league right now, but that doesn’t really matter. At home, and after losing two on the road, the Big Red should come away with at least one win.

Harvard

Best Case — 3rdHow? — The Crimson win two and Cornell takes less than four points.Worst Case — 8thHow? — The key is that Rensselaer is not in the top five, so Harvard loses two, Cornell takes at least one point, Princeton sweeps, Dartmouth sweeps, Yale sweeps and Rensselaer sweeps. The Crimson then lose a top five tiebreaker to Princeton.Handicapping — The Crimson should be able to knock of Yale on Friday night, but finishing the sweep against Princeton may be tough. The Crimson has only completed a weekend sweep once this year, and that was against RPI and Union back in early January.

Dartmouth

Best Case — 3rdHow? — Dartmouth sweeps and Cornell and Harvard do not take more than three points each. A three way tie between Dartmouth, Cornell and Harvard goes to Dartmouth.Worst Case — 9thHow? — Dartmouth loses two, Rensselaer sweeps, Yale sweeps, Princeton sweeps, Union sweeps. The Big Green then lose a top five tiebreaker to Union.Handicapping — The good news is that Dartmouth plays much better in front of its home crowd (9–4–0 at home versus a 3–7–4 away record). The bad news is that Big Green will be taking on the North Country duo — St. Lawrence and Clarkson — vying for the league crown.

Rensselaer

Best Case — 3rdHow? — Yale takes no more than three points, Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell are swept and the Engineers sweep.Worst Case — 9thHow? — Rensselaer is swept, Union wins one game and Princeton takes two points. Rensselaer loses a head-to-head tiebreaker to Union.Handicapping — On the road at Cornell will be tough. A game at Colgate is winnable for the Engineers, but a sweep may be too much to ask.

Yale

Best Case — 3rdHow? — The Bulldogs sweep and Harvard, Cornell and Dartmouth get swept. Even if Rensselaer sweeps, the Bulldogs win a top ten tiebreaker.Worst Case — 10thHow? — Yale loses twice, Rensselaer, Union, Vermont, Princeton sweep. The Bulldogs then lose a top five tiebreaker to Vermont.Handicapping — Yale picked a good time to go on a three-game winning streak, scoring 19 goals in its last three games. The Bulldogs offense should have no troubles against Brown’s defense, but the team has notoriously struggled at Bright.

Princeton

Best Case — 3rdHow? — Princeton sweeps, Harvard is swept, Yale and Rensselaer each loses one game, Cornell is swept, Dartmouth gets only one point. The Tigers then win a head-to-head tiebreaker over Dartmouth, Cornell and Harvard.Worst Case — 11thHow? — Princeton is swept, Vermont gets three points, Colgate sweeps, Union beats Cornell. The Tigers lose a three-way head to head tiebreaker with Colgate and Vermont to Colgate, then lose a top five tiebreaker to Vermont.Handicapping — The Tigers shouldn’t have a problem splitting this weekend’s series — they’ve done that plenty of times this year — but a sweep may be too much to ask for.

Union

Best Case — 5thHow? — Union sweeps, Rensselaer, Dartmouth and Yale are swept, and Princeton only takes two points. Union then wins a top five tiebreaker over Dartmouth.Worst Case — 11thHow? — Union is swept. Colgate sweeps and Vermont takes at least three points. Union is then alone in eleventh.Handicapping — The Skating Dutchmen played one of their best games of the year last weekend against Harvard. Union beat both Colgate and Cornell athome earlier this year, but taking on these two teams on the road may prove to be a tougher challenge. A split is possible, a sweep unlikely.

Vermont

Best Case — 7thHow? — Vermont sweeps, Rensselaer sweeps, Yale is swept, Union is swept, Princeton is swept and Dartmouth is swept. Vermont then wins a top five tiebreaker over Yale.Worst Case — 11thHow? — Vermont is swept and Colgate gets one point. Colgate wins the head-to-head tiebreaker.Handicapping — The prognosis for the Cats doesn’t look very good. With its very playoff life at stake this weekend, the team must host the two best teams in the league. The only sliver of hope is the fact that the home crowd will be on Vermont’s side. This will be a test to see just how powerful the Catamount faithful really is.

Colgate

Best Case — 8thHow? — Colgate sweeps, Vermont takes three points exactly and Princeton is swept. Colgate wins a three-way head-to-head tiebreaker for eighth.Worst Case — 11thHow? — Colgate loses two.Handicapping — The Red Raiders are in the midst of a three–game slide and will need to keep the score down in both contests to have a chance. With its playoff life at stake, Colgate should manage at least one win this weekend.

Brown

Best Case — 12thHow? — Doesn’t matter what happens.Worst Case — 12thHow? — Doesn’t matter what happens.Handicapping — Play spoiler, that’s the plan. The Bears are looking to the future and hoping to mess up Princeton and Yale’s chances of home ice and positioning.

Yeah, we know, no tiebreakers in the ECAC, there’s a better chance of someone beating the Iron Columnists four weeks in a row.

There is one thing that cannot happen. We cannot get the same five matchups as last season’s playoffs. That is impossible no matter how you slice it. The main reason — it’s impossible to match up Yale and Colgate.

If It’s So Easy, You Try It

It may be time to commit hara-kiri. Three in a row. The Iron Columnists have lost three in a row to Normand Chouinard. Congratulations to Normand! Chairman Brule is ready to supply us with the necessary tools.

If memory serves us right, Normand Chouinard took the Iron Columnists down for the third week in a row. This week, he goes for four in a row. Chairman Brule has prepared a very extra special theme ingredient this week, so, Norman Chouinard, bring your skills into USCHO Stadium and try to take down the Iron Columnists once again. Whose picks will reign supreme?

Possibly related:

The following is a self-policing forum for discussing views on this story. Comments that are derogatory, make personal attacks, are abusive, or contain profanity or racism will be removed at our discretion. USCHO.com is not responsible for comments posted by users. Please report any inappropriate or offensive comments by clicking the “Flag” link next to that comment in order to alert the moderator.

Please also keep “woofing,” taunting, and otherwise unsportsmanlike behavior to a minimum. Your posts will more than likely be deleted, and worse yet, you reflect badly on yourself, your favorite team and your conference.